


if in me you didn't find happiness

by queenofthestarrrs



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Male-Female Friendship, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 13:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3211286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthestarrrs/pseuds/queenofthestarrrs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a perfect world, when you see your ex-fiance for the first time since you got married to another guy, one would look absolutely drop dead stunning. Unfortunately, Jane Gloriana Villanueva Solano did not live in a perfect world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if in me you didn't find happiness

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this song comes from the English translation of "Como La Flor" by the late and great Selena. 
> 
> Spanish is not my first language (or second for that matter), so if I have made any mistakes, just let me know.

These heels were nice, really nice actually. Several hundred dollars worth of nice, a gift from Rafael for her birthday last year to celebrate the big three oh.However, they weren't exactly ideal for chasing after a rambunctious seven year old boy. Jane was darting down the sidewalk, careful to avoid cracks and keep an eye on her son.

Carlos was a runner.

Not the kind of runner that Jane would have been envied back when she was in high school or the kind who out lapped her not once, but twice, every time their gym teacher would drag them out in the oppressive Miami humidity to run a mile. No, he wasn’t ready for the glamorous world of competitive youth athletics just yet. 

Carlos was the kind of runner who would bolt every time someone dared to turn their back on him for even a second. The entire family had tried to talk him out of the habit. Heck, they had tried everything they could think of: emotional pleas, scary stories, statistics that seemed much too complicated for a kid to understand, shrill yelling in Spanish. anything. In the end, Rafael had eventually just thrown his hands up and declared a whole thing a “phase.” He’ll grow out of it, Rafael had insisted, until then we just have to keep a close eye on him No big deal. 

Except it actually was a big deal when he forced Jane to chase after him in five inch heels. Jane hated to say it, but she was almost kind of grateful when Carlos ran straight in one of the other parents. She watched in what seemed like slow motion as he collapsed to the ground and scuffed his knees. She didn’t like to see her child in pain. Just the opposite, each time those beautiful brown eyes swelled up with tears, she could feel her heart breaking a little. But he needed to learn someway, and her abuela always did insist that there was no child who died from crying. 

“No lágrimas,” she had told him as she squatted down on the sidewalk. The cuts were shallow, only skin deep. There were a few little pebbles lodged in his knee. Other than that, he would probably be back up and zipping around in a few minutes. “Es un accidente chiquitito.” 

“Oh my God,” The other parent had already launched into a litany of apologies. Their hands were moving dramatically in the corner of her field of view. “I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t even see him there. He kind of just popped out of nowhere.” 

Jane kept her eyes cast downward as she peeled Carlos off the pavement. The hem of her dress stuck to his bloody knee, and she couldn’t help but mentally run the dry cleaning calculations. Motherhood, she quickly found out, was hard on your wardrobe. She had lost two shirts to throw up, one skirt to urine, and one pair of silk pajama pants to the day her water broke. She had loved those pajamas. 

“Don’t worry about it. He wasn’t paying any attention to where he was going. In fact, I think he owes you an an apology. Mijo, what do you say to Mr...?”

“It’s Michael, actually.” She looked up. “Hi, Jane.” 

In a perfect world, when you see your ex-fiance for the first time since you got married to another guy, one would look absolutely drop dead stunning. Unfortunately, Jane Gloriana Villanueva Solano did not live in a perfect world. She did not look absolutely drop dead stunning. In fact, she didn't even look nice. She had grass stains on her heels, blood on the bottom of her dress, and sweat rolling down her face. She was also pulling her crying child, the same one that she had been pregnant with while they were still together, off the sidewalk in front of South Shore Branch Library. 

“Mom!” Carlos shouted as he finally upright again. “James is already at the front of the line! Can I go talk to him?”

All pain he just felt was apparently forgotten. Instead he was beaming at her, eyes darting from her to his best friend whose little blonde head was peeking over the other children.

“Once you apologize to Detective Cordero.” She smoothed his hair out with her hands.

Carlos turned to Michael, mumbled something that sounded remotely like the word "sorry," and dashed off to meet his friend probably so they could talk excitedly about the Real Madrid game he and Rafael watched last night or the fact that Thor could totally beat the Hulk in a fight. 

“Hi, Michael. It’s really good to see you again.” She smoothed out her dress. The blood was already starting to turn brown. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. That was rude of him. He’s got this weird habit of running away, and-. Anyway, I’ll make sure to talk to him when get home this afternoon.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. He’s just a kid. We all did stupid stuff when we were kids. Besides, I thought your family only had girls?” 

“Yeah, I thought so too. But nine months passed, and well, there was Carlos.” Jane laughed in relief. It was just the two of them, joking around like the old friends that they were. This was a lot less awkward than the hundreds of situations that she had imagined in her head. A side effect of being a writer, her boss had told her. “So are you one of the presenters?”

Michael looked at her, puzzled. His badge caught the sunlight at just the right angle, spreading hundreds of little flecks of gold across the grass. She wondered if he had got a promotion. Things didn't exactly end the way she wanted them to between the two of them, but Jane never doubted that Michael had always been incredible at what he did. 

“Rafael went to the last community thing with Carlos. It was like Shakespeare for youth or something like that. Anyway he told me today was Career Day for the kids. A cool police officer like you, they’d eat that right up.” 

“You think I’m going to speak today?” Michael pointed to himself. He shook his head and chuckled. It was a nice sound, a familiar sound. Jane smiled.“You’ve got the wrong guy, Jane.”

“Then what else are you doing at Career Day at the library on a Sunday afternoon? Important police duties?” 

Michael uncrossed his arms. He immediately stuffed them into his pockets. “Um, I’m actually off the clock. I’m here with my daughter. Something about her wanting to be a vet so she could, in I quote, ‘work with all the fuzzy animals.’” 

Scratch that, this was sufficiently more awkward. 

Jane had a very active imagination, and it was in full force every time the word Michael even crossed her mind. She imagined illicit affairs with supermodels who were way prettier than she ever was or a best selling tell all book about what exactly it was like to love and live with a pregnant virgin or other ridiculous things that made Rafael roll his eyes in the most affectionate way possibly. Yet, selfishly, she never imagined that Michael would have children of his own. 

“You have children?” Jane blurted out. “I’m mean that’s great. I always knew you would have made a great father.”

“Thanks, that means a lot, coming from you actually.” Michael smiled. “I have a daughter, Aubrey. She’s five. Loves animals. Wants to be a vet or a superhero, but that will probably change within the week. Oh, and uh, there’s another one on the way. That’s why Nadine isn’t here. She has an OB/GYN appointment at two, and Aubrey want to stay for the whole thing. So, we’re doing some coveted daddy-daughter time.” 

“You married Nadine?” Jane blurted out again. She had imagined Michael getting married to everyone from Angelina Jolie to Miss New Zealand, but Nadine? That she never saw coming. 

Okay, she kind of saw it coming, but she liked to block those ideas out of her head. She was never that fond of Nadine. The same Nadine who was having, and had, Michael's child. Ugh.

“Um, yeah.” Michael grinned. Jane’s heart twitched a little bit in her chest. That was the kind of smile that he used to get on his face when he talked about her nearly a decade ago. “It was a small thing at the courthouse. We’re gonna have something a little bit bigger in the fall after the baby is born, but I’m sure it will pale in comparison to yours. It was on the cover on every magazine in the grocery store.” 

Jane remembered that like it was yesterday. The marriage of a formerly pregnant still a virgin and her baby daddy/former playboy who just happened to own one of the most exclusive hotels in Miami was big news in tabloid terms. She remembered going to buy baby food with her mom and realized that her own face was staring back at her literally ten times over. Close ups of her and her bridal party graced the cover of People. She, Rafael, and Carlos, her perfect little family, were on the front of Life and Style. She and Rogelio made the center spread of Cosmo Latina wedged in between ‘The Best Jeans for Your Post-Baby Body’ and the notorious ‘Sex Tips.’ (She found both helpful.) It was surreal. Not necessarily unwelcome, but strange none the less.

“You were invited, you know. You didn’t have to creep on it from the grocery store.” 

“I know,” he said quietly. “But it was your big day, and I didn’t want to ruin it. I know Rafael wasn’t exactly my biggest fan back then. I wasn’t his either.” 

“Michael...”

“Your dress was gorgeous though. Did you finally get to dance with Rogelio?” He squinted up at the sun as if it somehow had all the answers he was looking for. 

“We danced to ‘Como La Flor’-."

"The J-Lo song?" He interjected. 

Jane laughed again. "No, it's by Selena. She was really popular when we were kids. But J-Lo played her in the movie they made about her life."

"Pssh," he chuckled, rolling his eyes. "I knew that. Who doesn't know that? I mean duh."

"Yeah, it’s our favorite song. He stepped on my toes twice. I think he had too much of the normal people wine.” Jane looked at him softly. “You remembered.”

“'Course I did. That’s all you ever wanted, Jane. You wanted your parents to be back together. You wanted to have a big wedding where you would wear the pretty white dress you deserved to wear. You wanted to marry the man of your dreams. I’m glad you batted three for three.” 

Against her better judgement, she put her arm on his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry it ended the way it did, Michael. I promise you that I really am, and if it changes anything, you really were the one who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I would have been happy to spend the rest of my life with you,” Her voice was low, and she felt something heavy like sorrow resting on her shoulders. 

“Are you happy?” He asked her, finally shading his eyes from the sun. 

“Of course.”

“Well, so am I.” He smiled at her the same way he used to smile at all of the victims he came across. It was the kind of smile that made you believe that everything was going to turn out alright. “So I guess that means that we made the right choice.” 

Somewhere in the distance, a girl calls for her father. 

Michael shifted from foot to foot. "I guess duty calls. Listen, Jane, you don't have to say yes, but I think it would be nice if we got some coffee some time. I know this great little Cuban place right on the beach. It’s great."

"I'd like that a lot."

“Then it's a date, I guess. It was nice to see you again, Jane. Honest.”

“You too, Michael.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find on tumblr (@shehulkings) complaining about how criminally underrated this show is.


End file.
